The Space Frontier Foundation is an American

space advocacy Space advocacy is supporting or advocating for a human use of outer space. Purposes advocated can reach from space exploration, or commercial use of space to even space settlement. There are many different individuals and organizations dedicat ...

nonprofit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

corporation A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and ...

organized to promote the interests of increased involvement of the private sector, in collaboration with government, in the exploration and development of space. Its advocate members design and lead a collection of projects with goals that align to the organization's goals as described by its credo.

History

The foundation was founded in 1988 by space activists led by Rick Tumlinson, Bob Werb and Jim Muncy who felt that: "it was technically possible to realize their shared vision of large-scale...settlement of the inner solar system... utthey knew this was not happening (and couldn't happen) under the status-quo centrally planned and exclusive U.S. government space program." Since 2005 the foundation has relied heavily on NASA funding, including a recent $110,000 award for business competition. Thomas Olson appeared on The Space Show to promote the competition. The competition takes place during the foundation's New-Space 12 conference, which is sponsored by NASA. The foundation supported the George W. Bush Administration's

Vision for Space Exploration Vision, Visions, or The Vision may refer to: Perception Optical perception * Visual perception, the sense of sight * Visual system, the physical mechanism of eyesight * Computer vision, a field dealing with how computers can be made to gain und ...

. In March, 2005, the foundation praised the selection of Dr. Michael Griffin as the next administrator of NASA. A press release said "Mike Griffin will be a good captain for NASA." Bob Werb, the foundation chairman, said "Mike Griffin knows more about space and capitalism than the last three administrators combined. Vision-killing bureaucrats inside and outside of government should be trembling in their boots." Richard Tumlinson said, "This bodes well for the emerging New Space industry."

Activities and policies

In recent years, the Space Frontier Foundation has been supportive of various private sector efforts such as the Ansari X Prize, the

SpaceShipOne SpaceShipOne is an experimental air-launched rocket-powered aircraft with sub-orbital spaceflight capability at speeds of up to 3,000 ft/s (900 m/s, 3240 km/h), using a hybrid rocket motor. The design features a unique " feathering ...

project, and entrepreneur Robert Bigelow's plans to build a space hotel. The foundation has been critical of the U.S. government's efforts in space, particularly those of the

National Aeronautics and Space Administration The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding ...

. For example, the foundation has criticized NASA's

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program n ...

and

Ares I Ares I was the crew launch vehicle that was being developed by NASA as part of the Constellation program. The name "Ares" refers to the Greek deity Ares, who is identified with the Roman god Mars. Ares I was originally known as the "Crew Launc ...

, claiming that the shuttle's work could be better done by private sector companies. However, the foundation has supported some recent NASA efforts, such as NASA's

Centennial Challenges The Centennial Challenges are NASA space competition inducement prize contests for non-government-funded technological achievements by American teams. Origin NASA's Centennial Challenge Program (CCP) directly engages the public at large in the pr ...

prize program for stimulating private-sector innovation and the new NASA direction of cancelling Constellation in favour of technology development and supporting commercial companies. The foundation's current strategic focus is to enable the growth of the

NewSpace Private spaceflight is spaceflight or the development of spaceflight technology that is conducted and paid for by an entity other than a government agency. In the early decades of the Space Age, the government space agencies of the Soviet Uni ...

community. The foundation's

board of directors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit orga ...

has endorsed the following objectives: *The Space Frontier Foundation's mission is to open the space frontier to permanent human settlement; *An open frontier can only be achieved by unleashing the power of

free enterprise In economics, a free market is an economic system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of government or any ot ...

; *Government's role in unleashing the power of free enterprise is critical and best accomplished by adopting the proven frontier paradigm of catalyzing the

private sector The private sector is the part of the economy, sometimes referred to as the citizen sector, which is owned by private groups, usually as a means of establishment for profit or non profit, rather than being owned by the government. Employment The ...

; *All parts of all governments must embrace and fully utilize the potential of the emerging NewSpace Industry, and; *Regarding NASA, the near-term focus of the foundation is on maximizing the market share of goods and services that the NewSpace industry is permitted to capture.

Affiliations

The foundation is a founding executive member of the Alliance for Space Development.

Membership

The foundation's membership is composed of volunteers who typically fall into one of two groups. The regular members are those who provide a large amount of the volunteer work necessary to operate the projects that support the conferences and many other less obvious processes associated with a corporate office. Regular members donate time and money as they can in accordance with other demands upon them. Advocate members are those who are invited to step to the next level and help run the projects, start new ones, and fund the foundation's activities. Advocates are those who have demonstrated a high degree of understanding and commitment to the foundation's goals along with a track record of action toward these goals. Advocates are asked to donate more time and money on a regular basis and are the voting members that decide elections for the foundation's board of directors.

Projects

Projects are the primary means by which the foundation acts in support of its goals. Projects are advocate managed activities with their own objectives, budgets, and volunteer support teams. Each project pursues what its members think they can accomplish using the skills they have. Advocates working each project assume the responsibility for keeping them aligned with Foundation objectives as best they can. This mostly decentralized approach to action is intentional and a core tradition of the foundation. Past projects include The Watch, an

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere. ...

and

comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena ...

detection and research project, Permission to Dream, connecting students around the world through the wonder of space and

astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, g ...

, sponsorship of conferences, and the Space Settlement Project in marketing space to the general public. Current projects include Teachers in Space, a program to offer American teachers rides on future

sub-orbital spaceflight A sub-orbital spaceflight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches outer space, but its trajectory intersects the atmosphere or surface of the gravitating body from which it was launched, so that it will not complete one orbital re ...

launches.Teachers in space
MSNBC, 20 Sept. 2006 Furthermore, the foundation hosts its annual ''NewSpace'' conference every year in July, which enables NewSpace leaders to meet and collaborate regarding the future of the movement.

References

External links

*
SSP Project Whitepaper submitted to President-Elect 2008
{{Authority control Scientific organizations established in 1988 Space advocacy organizations Space organizations